The rock art of South America extends over a vast geographical area and across a long period of time. The earliest paintings known were found in the North East of Brazil. Here in the cave of the Toca de Boquairoa de Pedra Furado, a fragment of stone with two parallel lines painted in red was found under a hearth whose upper level was dated to 17,000 years BP, Before Present. The paintings visible today in the rock shelter are thought to be more recent, early Holocene, 8-9000 BP, when the first Maize and squash was being domesticated in South West Mexico.
At the beginning of present times, hunters of the Holocene or “Completely New Age”, produced paintings of animals, humans and geometrical figures, found in the lowlands of Brazil and Argentina, and in the Southern Andes of Chile, Bolivia and Peru. The oldest are thought to be scenes from North East Brazil, showing scenes of hunting, fighting, dancing, sexual relations and giving birth, dated to 12,000 years BP.
In Patagonia a few thousand years later, there are camelids, alpaca and vicuna, chased by humans, and the famous hands in negative of the Cave of the Painted Hands by the Rio Pinturas, Paintings River, in Santa Cruz. Similar hunting scenes appear in the Andes from the North of Chile, through Bolivia to South and Central Peru, whilst the the hand paintings are found in small numbers in Chile and Bolivia but no further North.